Editorial
Opposition's preconditions to joining parliament
Are these in public interest?
THE main opposition seems not to have buried the hatchet, but is raising demand after demand as a precondition for joining the parliamentary sessions. Interestingly, in their latest disclosure on the demands, they made no mention of rearrangement and increasing the number of front row seats for which they started their continuous boycott of Jatiya Sangsad (JS) from its second session in June last year in the first place.
Through their continuous boycott of JS, the BNP has virtually made its constituents a hostage of their demands, which are escalating without let-up and now those stand at 10. The question is how does the opposition relate these demands to public interest in general what they are supposed to speak for in the JS (parliament)?
If one looks through the demands, it would become clear that those are concerned mostly with individual-centric matters such as maintaining the status quo on the opposition leader's cantonment house, her personal security, the cases, alleged to be 'politically motivated' against her lying with the court, withdrawal of similar cases against her eldest son Tarique Rahman as well as other leaders.
The issue of withdrawing the 'political cases' does, of course, merit serious attention for some cogent reasons. The issue should have been left to the discretion of the court. What the ruling party has done instead by quashing the cases against its own leaders through executive fiat is nothing but a mockery of the rule of law. To all intents and purposes, their action is morally indefensible. But BNP's demand on this score, too, is equally repugnant to moral sensibilities and we have already expressed our stand on this through our editorial comments.
The Opposition's points of contention with the ruling party, whatever their merits, deserve a good hearing from the Treasury Bench. But for that to happen they (the Opposition) need to make the most of the provisions on the floor of the Jatiya Sangsad. That is only fair in a parliamentary democracy. Once that option is exhausted without any result, they may well go for exercising their democratic right to bring the issues to the street. But without taking that constitutional path, on the contrary, the Opposition has established a negative culture of continuous boycotting of parliament, thereby reneging on their responsibility towards the electorate.
It is hoped the opposition would shun this negativism and join parliamentary sessions and thereby make the Jatiya Sangsad functional.
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